Backstroke Tip to Work on Relaxing

I was a backstroker when I swam. My father was my coach. Away from the pool though, we never really talked about stroke technique or race strategy, or things that I needed to work on when we were at home. Home was not the place for the coach, but a place for the parent. We only talked about swimming when my brother and I began a conversation about swimming, which actually happened a lot. My dad would sometimes join in at times, but they mainly were my brother and I just talking about swimming. My mother also stayed away from coaching us, and allowed our coaches to coach us. My mother though did say things at times, not to tell us what we had to do, but more things that she concentrated on when she swam.

My mother was a world class backstroke swimmer, who was part of the lost generation of fast swimmers who peaked in time for the 1980 Olympics. I remember her talking about how a concentration of hers was to learn how to relax your face muscles while swimming backstroke. I tried it, and I found that this allowed me to relax my neck, and also relax upper back muscles. It created me as a 12 year old swimmer with a backstroke that many complimented me on how pretty the stroke was. The new relaxed stroke probably had something to do with backstroke being the first stroke that I got fast at when I was young.  I learned that the relaxed stroke was so fast, and I was able to do events that I didn't think that I could do. I only liked the 50 back, but now the 100 back was easier, and the 200 back was possible. This concept of relaxing my swims would lead to progressing in all my strokes later in my swimming.

I talk to my swimmers the other day when working on backstroke to concentrate on relaxing the face muscles, neck, and back. They had a hard time, but many relaxed enough that some of the rigidness in their strokes became less. They all told me that it was hard, and many began laughing as they tried to relax their faces. They said it felt really weird. It will continue to be something that the group works on.

I preach that relaxation is the key to speed. Here was a skill that I used to try to reinforce that concept. The swimmers in the group continue to struggle with the idea, but it is one of those aspects that I continue to push to my swimmers. It may seem counter-intuitive, but relaxing really is what makes swimmers really fast. This is why the fastest swimmers make it look so easy; they're relaxed.